Lunice Clay hopes visitors think about peace as they walk the labyrinth at Holy Cross Evangelical Lutheran Church in Livonia.

They'll get some help focusing on the topic from a visible reminder — a peace pole — that was placed at the entrance of the church's prayer park on Sunday, Sept. 20. The peace pole is the newest addition to the park, which includes a patio, benches, a fountain, and the maze-like labyrinth. It was installed just in time for the International Day of Peace on Sept. 21.

"It was my big idea. I've had some prior experience with peace poles," said Clay, church labyrinth facilitator. "I thought it would be nice to observe that day. This is a wonderful place to put a peace pole. When people transition from the parking lot to the labyrinth, it's something to get them focused on the connectedness between us all."

The peace pole shows the phrase "may peace prevail on earth" in a different language on each of its four sides.

"We chose English, Hindi, Arabic and Hebrew," Clay said. "The thinking behind that was that English is used in the church here. Judaism and Hindu are major religions, along with Islam. This is kind of a prayer that the major religions live in peace and the people live in peace."

Peace poles began showing up in Japan in the 1950s and were introduced to the United States in 1986, when The World Peace Prayer Society opened offices on both coasts. A program of the organization is The Peace Pole Project which seeks to unite individuals through the peace message, "may peace prevail on earth."

"Peace never gets old," Clay said.

The church bought its pole from Peace Pole Makers USA, a company based in Maple City, near Glen Arbor, in northwest Michigan that has produced poles for 30 years. David Moffat took over the company from its original owners in 2001 and sells approximately 500-600 mostly four-sided poles every year. His busy season is spring-fall, with a major push just before the International Day of Peace.

Variety of sizes

The poles are made of Canadian western red cedar and the message is either written on an environmentally friendly plaque that is attached to the pole or is sandblasted directly into the wood. Moffat crafts four-sided and six-sided full-sized poles for placement outdoors, 20-inch-tall desktop poles and 7-inch mini poles.

"We've had people use the mini poles as place settings at weddings," Moffat said. "Quite a lot of churches and schools use (full-sized poles) for conflict resolution." They're also placed at hospitals, domestic abuse shelters, and private residences.

"I had a mini pole go into space years ago on the space shuttle. There's one at the North Pole and South Pole. We've sent them just about everywhere and pretty much on every continent."

Customers can choose from 1,000 different languages, including Esperanto and Braille. Moffat said English, Russian and Spanish were the most popular languages when he gook over the business 14 years ago. Now it's Hebrew, Arabic, English and Spanish.

Moffat said he has several peace poles at his home. That includes a half-purple pole he made for a woman in California who loves purple. The stain on the first pole he made wasn't drying properly. The second took more than nine months to dry. He ended up with one of them.

"That's why we don't do custom painting any more."

Moffat said the outdoor poles last for years if they get a fresh coat of stain occasionally.

"There's been a pole at a local restaurant for 10 years that doesn't look a day over a year or two. We try to make them as weatherproof as we can."

Holy Cross Lutheran Church is located at 30650 Six Mile, Livonia. The prayer park and labyrinth are free and open to the public. Visit holycrosslivonia.org.